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Are we really staying at home, Montgomery? Not as much as you’d think, traffic counts show

Traffic has dropped as little as 25% at four interchanges Monday after Ivey shut down non-essential businesses and Reed announced the curfew. The rate of traffic was slower but steadier per hour, according to city traffic engineering data.

For example, vehicles passing through the interchange at Vaughn and Taylor roads in east Montgomery — a heavy retail area with grocery stores nearby — had 10,308 fewer vehicles Monday, a 33% change from March 9, the last Monday before the first confirmed case of coronavirus in the state.

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Rush hour has all but disappeared as more and more workers are under work-from-home orders. The heavy morning traffic and 5 p.m. return home aren’t there, accounting for some of the dropoff. Instead daily traffic patterns mirror pre-pandemic weekend behavior when a traveler’s day is filled with small trips for a to-do list with a stop here for this and a visit there to do that.

The city did not have access to traffic data for downtown available because the measurement equipment is not set up there.

Alabama Department of Transportation figures show interstate traffic has dropped 25-30% comparing Thursday, March 21, 2019, to Thursday, March 19 this year. Comparatively, Seattle had a 65% dropoff in highway traffic as the city was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic in mid-March and stay at home orders were put in place, according to a USA Today report. San Francisco vehicular traffic dropped off 58 percent.

Health officials are worried about Alabama hospital systems’ capacity to treat the virus and stressed Alabamians, regardless of a state mandate, to stay away from each other. Each trip to a drive-through for a snack or Coke or a stop at an ATM for cash is a potential viral contact point. Asymptomatic people can still transmit the virus without knowing it, experts say.

The state now has more than 1,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus, an exponential rise, and 24 deaths related to COVID-19. It is confirmed in all but eight of Alabama’s 67 counties.

Sara MacNeil can be reached at smacneil@montgome.gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter.